Chapter 4 : The Love that Haunts

“Did he fall asleep?” Mina asked, watching her brother’s chest heave in a steady rhythm as he lay on Hyoyeon’s lap.

“MMM….” Hyoyeon brushed away a lock of hair falling over Jong Suk’s eye and tucked it behind his ear. “He cried too much” she said, lifting her gaze onto the little girl standing in front of her “He must be tired.”

“Unni…” Mina sat down next to her and peered into her brother’s face; his lips were slightly parted as he exhaled through his open mouth. “What are we going to do?” she asked, darting her eyes back onto the girl next to her.

“That jerk!” she couldn’t help the words coming out the moment she remembered Woo Bin, “He dares to play with our sweet Jong Sukie…I really want to walk into his filming site, grab his hair and give him a good punch.” She shook her head as if to throw away those dangerous images flashing across her mind of her fist hitting Woo Bin right across his face. Then she swung her head to face Mina, her eyes sharpened in a firm glitter. “Should we go and grab that first? You take care of her hair and I’ll take care of her face” she tucked her lips in and slammed her fist against her left palm.

“U—Unni…” Mina’s words shuttered as she stared at Hyoyeon’s firm expression, trying hard to find any kind of a hint that said she was only joking, but she found none. “We have to forget them unni” she uttered, hoping to bring her face back to her usual cheerful state. “We have to forget all of them and just focus on our hyung”

Hyoyeon seemed to be thinking, then after a while she awakened her voice, “Then…let’s set him on a date” she said making Mina’s eyes go wide.

“A D—date?”

“Hmm” she nodded.

“With another…” she wasn’t sure how to bring out the next word, then she looked slowly into Hyoyeon’s eyes and whispered “guy?”

Hyoyeon couldn’t help a chuckle from escaping ; the little girl’s expression seemed to be that of a lost puppy, sacred of being eaten by a predator.

“Ya, are you nuts?” she said once she was able to control her laughter, “Why would we set him up with a guy?”

“Well…isn’t he…you know…” Mina took a qick glance at her brother before letting her thought out, “…like gay?”

“Ya, have you ever seen Jong Suk looking at another guy in a romantic way?”

Mina thought for a moment. No, she has never seen her brother behave the way he did with Woo Bin with another guy. She shook her head.

“Exactly” Hyoyeon said glancing at Jong Suk’s sleeping figure. She darted her gaze back to Mina, “He is not gay; it’s just that he has fallen deeply in love with someone and that someone is Woo Bin and Woo Bin happens to be a boy”

“Then…are you saying that…our hyung is…” Mina’s eyes quivered, unsure if she should say it or not, “he is Woo-Bin-ual?”

“What?” Hyoyeon felt her inside lurch in an uncontrollable laughter. Clutching her stomach, she cracked up in loud laughter. “Ya…” she managed to say through her crack ups “You should become a….comedian, seriously.”  

“Unni, he will wake up” Mina said trying to calm down Hyoyeon.

Hyoyeon clamped and felt tears twinkle down her eyes from laughing too much. “Aish…look what you’ve done” she said to Mina, pointing her fingers at the black tears that had ruined her mascaraed eyes. Mina grabbed the tissue box on the table and handed it to Hyoyeon.

“Sorry” she said “I didn’t mean to make you laugh until you cry”

“Ah…” Hyoyeon took a deep breath and she tossed the blackened tissues on the floor “Anyway, like I was saying, there is this girl that really likes Jong Suk and her personality is nice too. I will set them up on a blind date”

“But will hyung agree to it?”

“Ya…” Hyoyeon swung her gaze, looked right into Mina’s eyes, “Obviously he wouldn’t and that’s why it’s your job to make him agree”

“What?”

“I’ll arrange the date and tell you the time and place and you make sure he goes there”

“But unni…”

“No buts. You have to do it if you want your brother to forget that jerk”

***

Woo Bin could hardly sit still in the chair anymore and kept twisting his head, looking for something to calm him down. It had only been fifteen minutes since his talk show started but it felt like he was there for longer than three hours. Was this really a talk-show or was it more like an interview? He wondered since the hostess kept directing all kinds of questions at him, almost ignoring all the other guests.

“When did you first fell in love with your girlfriend?” she asked.

“During our modelling days” he said, thinking about how he had met Jong Suk and how he was attracted to that beautiful person. “That person stayed with me during hard times and we got closer” but that love has not come true yet…he thought, remembering his best friend’s face.  

“If you have a time machine” she was asking again, “Where and when do you want to go to?”

He thought about it; if he had a time machine he wants to return to a time that he had everything he wanted, and unlike now, to a time where he lived a life without a single regret. What was his deepest regret…? He didn’t need to think much, the exact time he wanted to return to flashed across his mind. “Second year of high school, September 3^rd” he said.

“What day is that?” she was quick to ask again.

It was the day he was preparing for his debut fashion show, Lone Costume 2006 runaway. But that was not the reason he wanted to go back; there was one special encounter he had that day. It was the first day he met a model called Lee Jong Suk; a face like the moon, pale and somehow wavering. He could get the gist of his features, but none of it had stuck in his mind beyond the impression of astonishing beauty of that boy’s. That was a day he had everything he wanted and everything he regretted losing later on. It was the perfect day of Woo Bin’s life.  

He smiled before answering the hostess; “I don’t know either” he said, “It just seems like a day with really nice weather. I chose the second year of high school because I think it was the time I was most free, and there was no pressure.” No pressure to hide my real feeling, no pressure to pretend to love someone that I did not love although he wanted to voice those thoughts, he did not dare to mess up anything anymore than they already were. Instead he formed the best smile he could manage and watched the hostess start another conversation with one of the other guests. He wondered why Jong Suk hadn’t answered his calls, or rather why it kept going into voice mail every time he called since last night. Was he ill? Was he in an accident? The sudden thoughts made his heart race on its tracks. I want to call him…but he couldn’t; because he was in a live show.

He was not hoping to enter a live talk show, his manager only told him that there will be an hour photo-shoot and he would be free for the rest of the day. I should have known, he thought as he glanced at his manager standing at the end of the studio, giving him the best apologetic smile the man could manage. No wonder you said you’d give me the rest of the day off….he felt like jumping off the stage and landing a good kick on his manager but unfortunately it was a live show. If it was just a photo-shoot he would be able to call Jong Suk whenever he had a break, but now he had to wait another half an hour. I’ll call him when this is over, he thought glancing at his phone tucked into his trouser pocket. He held in the anger and looked around the audience while a commercial started airing. He managed to spot a familiar face, Park Shin Hye, walking onto the stage. She was a guest for the second half on the talk show. He felt somewhat relived to know she was taking part in it, because all the other guests and the hosts were not familiar to him at all.

After some more ridiculous questions and jokes the show finally ended and people parted their ways. Woo Bin dashed out of the studio and called number 2 on his speed dial; still there was no answer. He tried few more times, feeling his heart race every second. He dialled Jong Suk’s manager’s number. After few rings the call was answered by a rough voice.

“Hyung, it’s me Woo Bin” he said.

“Oh, Woo Bin-ah…what’s the matter?” he must have felt the uneasiness in Woo Bin’s voice, and he hardly ever called the manager before.

“Is Jong Suk alright? I haven’t been able to get through to him in a while now”

“Oh, he is fine. I just called him earlier this morning. He has three days off, so he must be having fun now. Probably even forgot to charge his mobile” he said, chuckling as he did, “You know what he is like when he has a break, must be sleeping or watching something by now”

“I see…” the words left Woo bin’s mouth automatically, “Sorry to have troubled you hyung”

“Oh, don’t worry about it” he said and Woo Bin cut the line off.

“Is something the matter?” Shi Hye’s voice approached him from behind, pulling him away from his thoughts. He looked at the girl, wondering if he should ask her. She knew him pretty well after filming ‘The Heirs’ with her and he had come to the decision that she was someone he could trust, someone who he can talk freely with.

“Shin Hye-ah…”

“Oh?”

“If…say if you have been calling someone” he paused for a second, looked at the waiting eyes and continued, “But when you call, it only rings once and then goes to voice mail. But if you call from another phone it rings and they answers”

“Are you sure that person hasn’t blocked your number?” She asked, her face in a suspecting gesture.

“What?” he has blocked me? He felt his heart stop for a second.

“I mean…” she regretted saying it the moment she saw Woo Bin’s face crumble into a mass of pain. “May be it’s just their phone is off or something” she said, wanting to take back the words that had left a moment ago. “It’s just that one of my friends had a similar thing happening to them, later they found that they were being blocked by the other person” then she spoke again hurriedly, “It may not be the same case….”

“Shin Hye-ah…”

“Oh?”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve to go now. Let’s go for coffee some other time okay?”

“Oh…? Oh….” Before she could say anything else Woo Bin had dashed across the foyer and was pushing his way out of the door.  

“Woo Bin-ah, why are you running?” his manager asked, getting out of the van when he spotted Woo Bin running fast toward the van.

“Hyung, I need to go see Jon—”

“Woo-Bin-ah…” he was cut off by a high pitched voice that descended from the back of his van. Yoo Ji Ahn opened the back door lightly and peered through her sunglasses. “You don’t have to run, we can take our time” she said, grinning as she pulled him into the van. He gave his manager a questioning eye and only got a shrug in return.

“Where shall I take you?” the manager asked, looking at the couple in the back seat.

“Just drop us by the car park, I got my car, we will drive in that” she said without waiting for Woo Bin’s answer.

An hour after they were standing in front of a French restaurant that most celebrities attended. Woo Bin had come here in the past, when he was filming ‘School 2013’ he had come here to dine with Jong Suk. He suddenly felt the urge to turn around and run away from this place; he didn’t want to taint his memories with Jong Suk by dragging a girl into the places that they had visited together. Because those places and those memories, he only wanted to share them with Jong Suk.

“Let’s go somewhere else” Woo Bin said, turning around. Ji Ahn grabbed his arm.

“I always wanted to come here. I already made the reservations” she said, pulling Woo Bin in. A bunch of girls coming out of the restaurant watched them as one girl whispered something in to the other’s ear. They all giggled and stared, smiling at Woo Bin. He had no choice but to follow Ji Ahn inside. He didn’t want any more trouble with his agency.  

They were shown to their tables and were waiting for their orders when Woo Bin spotted a too familiar blond figure sitting down few tables away from where he was; he felt his eyes widen. He was right, it was Jong Suk. And who is that girl giggling in front of him? It’s not any of his friends…Woo Bin thought, looking at the long haired girl shyly smiling, obviously fallen for Jong Suk’s beauty. Jong Suk didn’t have that many friends, so Woo Bin knew almost all of them.

Jong Suk had brought a girl to the restaurant they had first visited together in the past. Woo Bin had lost his appetite for some reason, he jerked to his feet, wanting to leave the place as soon as possible.

“Oh my god!” Ji Ahn almost screamed suddenly as she followed Woo Bin’s eyes fixed on something behind her. “Isn’t that Jong Suk?” she jumped to her feet and darted across the aisle before Woo Bin could even react to her behaviour. He stood there, almost frozen as he gathered his mind into one piece.

“Jong Suk-ah” she said merrily, stopping by the beautiful boy’s side.

Jong Suk felt his heart stop, his smile faltered. It thumped again, as if someone had squeezed it for long few second when the time had frozen and had just released it. It was pumping painfully now, the rhythm lost at the sight of the tall girl standing next to him. Ji Ahn in this restaurant….that means he is here too. A pulsating pain jabbed behind his eye; no don’t Lee Jong Suk, please don’t…you can’t cry here. This place is not a place open to welcome your tears. He managed to stretch his lips and direct an artificial smile at the girl.

“Who is this beautiful young lady? Your girlfriend?" she asked smiling brightly at the innocent girl sitting in front of Jong Suk. You are here to forget him…you came here to start anew. So let him go. Erase him from your memories. Think only about the girl in front of you, he reminded himself before introducing his date that was set up by his best friend and forced to attend by his sister.

“This is Park Su Jin” Jong Suk said gesturing at his date, “And I’m sure you already know her, but this is Yoo Ji Ahn, my…my friend’s girlfriend” he said. When he looked up, he saw Woo Bin walking toward them. His heart hammered as he pulled his gaze back to the table. He may have managed to fool these two girls with his artificially formed smile, but Woo Bin wouldn’t fall for that. Woo Bin had the ability to read his eyes, the eyes that didn’t lie.

I want to show him…that I can also find happiness; Jong Suk thought as he looked up and smiled at Woo Bin. For a moment he thought he saw a glitter in Woo Bin’s eyes, but the next second a happy smile greeted him from Woo Bin’s face.